Dragon Quest III: The Seeds of Salvation was developed by Chunsoft and published by Enix in Japan in 1988. It was translated into English and released as Dragon Warrior III in North America in 1992, some four years later.
Tag Archives: Dragon Quest series
Dragon Warrior II, NES
Dragon Quest II: Luminaries of the Legendary Line was developed by Chunsoft and published by Enix in Japan in 1987. The localised English version of this game was released as Dragon Warrior II in North America in 1990.
Dragon Quest IX, Nintendo DS
The follow-up to the classic PS2 game Dragon Quest VIII is another fine level-grinder, with cheerful, colourful graphics and mesmerising gameplay. Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies was developed by Level-5 and published by Square Enix on the Nintendo DS in 2009.
Getting straight down to it: Dragon Quest IX (nine) is similar to the previous game in the series, but with a few fundamental changes…
100 Best Level-Grinders Of All-Time
Level-Grinders; Dungeon-Crawlers; Role-Playing Games – whatever you want to call them – they are my (and many other people’s) favourite type of video game.
They allow you to build up your characters via the process of levelling. That is: by gaining experience, which in turn increases your character’s power levels.
Level-Grinders also allow you to hoard virtual items that don’t exist in the real world; accumulate unimaginable wealth in an imaginary world, and solve mysteries while you’re doing it.
Over and over again. For the love of the grind…
So here we go… The 100 Best Level-Grinders Of All-Time…
Dragon Quest VI, Super Nintendo
Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation was developed by Heartbeat for Enix and released for the Super Nintendo in 1995 in Japan. It is the sixth instalment in the Dragon Quest series, if you aren’t familiar with Roman numerals.
Dragon Quest V, Super Nintendo
First released in 1992 by Enix, Dragon Quest V (five – or, to give the game its full title: Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride) is another fun-to-play JRPG that is simple but engaging, and also contains enough detail and surprises to feel worthwhile.
It was the first Dragon Quest game released for the Super Nintendo and sold over three million copies in Japan.
Like its successor, Dragon Quest VI, it wasn’t officially released in the West until decades later, but English fan translation patches for the game do exist and that is what I’m showing here.
Dragon Quest VIII, PlayStation 2 [Part 2]
Okay, so I couldn’t just leave it at that with regard to Dragon Quest VIII, so here’s another set of screenshots showing later in the game. In particular: the Dragovian Trials – an unlockable quest in which you take on a series of ever more powerful dragons, for unique rewards at the end of the game.
Dragon Quest VIII, PlayStation 2
There is no doubting that this 2004 release from Square Enix is the best JRPG on the PlayStation 2. At least, in my mind.
Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King is a colourful and detailed re-imagining of the Dragon Quest franchise, with Cel-Shaded graphics and tons of monsters – many of them familiar – to fight it out with in turn-based combat.
Dragon Warrior, NES
Developed by Chunsoft and released for the Famicom by Enix in 1986, Dragon Quest was a landmark moment in video game history.
Dragon Warrior is the American NES release of Dragon Quest, translated into English and tweaked here and there (I say “tweaked here and there” but the US version had battery back-up saves and the Japanese version used password saves, so there was a big difference there), and released by Nintendo in 1989. These grabs are from the later North American English language release.
The King of Grabs 